The project management field and discipline has expanded and grown quickly over the last ten years but with that comes the concept of ‘The Accidental Project Manager’, a project manager who doesn’t have the necessary skill set and knowledge to perform the duties of the role, who isn’t really a project manager at all but hides in plain sight for all to see🤦‍♂️

Some points to note below on what authentic project managers should have.

• Project managers at a basic level should have knowledge of the project and system development life cycles but also experience of delivering projects using them. If you suspect your project manager is weak in this area you may have ‘An Accidental Project Manager’ on board.

• Project managers don’t need to be loud, aggressive, belligerent and forceful, be cautious of those with overbearing personality traits like these, you may have ‘An Accidental Project Manager’ in your team.

• Project managers should be natural and confident and be able to build relationships organically, be suspicious of those who lack authenticity and look out of place, you may have ‘An Accidental Project Manager’ in your team.

• Project managers should not rely on project qualifications and certifications as a security blanket, they should have the right 80/20 balance of experience and qualifications along with common sense to help them deliver quality, a project manager who lacks the right balance could well be another ‘Accidental Project Manager’ who is learning as they go and that is a risk for successful delivery. 

• Project managers should have a natural ability and flexibility to transition between industries and different projects without effort, be weary of the one who struggle with this, you may have ‘An Accidental Project Manager’ in your team.

• Project managers should understand the different resources needed to deliver a project with the requisite level of quality, the accidental project manager will demonstrate a lack of working knowledge in this area.

• Project managers should be able to demonstrate with ease all the different types of testing from static to smoke and user acceptance to system integration testing, the accidental project manager will struggle to understand testing beyond user acceptance testing.

• Project managers should understand development cycles and different methodologies with ease, the accidental project manager will demonstrate a lack of knowledge in this space.

• Project managers should understand development takes time and to get to a working fully functioning product or/and system that is ready for deployment is a marathon not a sprint, the accidental project manager will not fully understand the complexities of development and the time it takes to deliver quality.

• Project managers will have the right balance of listening and talking, without this it will be hard to understand project stakeholders and essentially what needs to be delivered, if you don’t have this you have to ask are you ‘An Accidental Project Manager’?

• Understanding communication styles and communication types is an essential skill all project managers should possess, if you notice project managers who struggle at this, they could be ‘An Accidental Project Manager’.

• Remember just because you have a title and are in a senior management position does not mean you have the skills to be a project manager and navigate your way through the project life cycle, all you are is ‘An Accidental Project Manager’ either due to a lack of understanding of what a project manager role entails or an unwillingness to hire an experienced and knowledgeable project manager.

• Fail to prepare, prepare to fail, this is a certainty with ‘An Accidental Project Manager’, a system may get delivered but it will lack the quality desired and will only mean extra cost & time being spent fixing it, don’t cut corners, use proper Project Managers.

• Scope management is an essential element of a project delivery and a part of a project that project managers are adept at managing and can spot quickly. The Accidental Project Manager is liable to let scope drift and once this happens delays are inevitable and the quality of the original baselined scope and requirements are at high risk.

• Managing the Go live & deployment phase (including transition to BAU & Hypercare) is stressful and busy and numerous tasks need to be planned carefully, ‘An Accidental Project Manager’ most likely has never managed this before and this lack of experience and knowledge is dangerous & a huge risk to the success of the project. You could argue strongly that with ‘An Accidental Project Manager’ in charge you may never see a Go Live🤷🏼‍♂️.